conworldfandomcom-20200222-history
City-State of Greenville
The City-State of Greenville Greenville (green-ville) is a North American city-state bordered eniterly by the US state of Montana. Greenville declared independence from the United States in 1969 in oposition to the vietnam war draft. Greenville became an autonomous state in 1970 after the city's war of independence was won. Greenville is considered a city-state because the country consists entirely of the town of Greenville, which is also the capital. The former city limits of the town became the new international border in Janurary 1970. In 1969 the city had 1,567 residents. In 1970 the population fell to 863 as a result of people moving away so they could remain in the US. However, today Greenville's territory has not not grown from the orginal borders but the country now boasts a population of over 1,600 citizens. Greenville has a unique system of government. The head of state is a Mayor elected every four years. There is also a Vice Mayor elected on the same ballot. Under the Mayor, the government divides into two sections; the City Council and the Cabinet. The City Council consists of 15 Councilmen elected by the population. The City Council functions similarly to the US Congress, they propose and pass laws. The Mayor then vetos or affirms the propsed laws. The Cabinet however, is entierly appointed by the Mayor. The Cabinet consists of the various government departments and their directors. These directors are usually re-appointed every four years by the new incoming Mayor. History Founding and Early History Greenville was founded in 1874 by US settlers moving west. From 1874 until 1917, the town remained similar. In 1918 when World War 1 began, Greenville became home to the Smithson and Collins Ammo Company. Smithson and Collins operated a medium sized plant in the town producing artillery shells for the US Army until 1969. From 1919 until 1938 the town grew steadily in population. The reason that Greenville didn't die out during the Great Depression is atributed to the fact that the Greenville economy was supported by the Smithson and Collins plant, and not agriculture. During World War 2, Greenville suffered a major population decline because the draft hit them very hard, taking away two of every three men in the town, over 60% of whom didn't surivive the war. Greenville went from a population of 2,264 in 1939 down to only 1,089 in 1945. Vietnam War In 1968 when the draft began again, the city passed an ordinance stating that Greenville men were not subject to the draft. This was done in response to the aftermath of the World War 2 draft. The city ordinance was not recognized by Montana, and the Federal Government wasn't even aware of it's existance. On 7 October 1968, the Mayor of Greenville, Mayor Steve Willcombs, went before the City Council and proposed that they order the Greenville Police to arrest any US draft officials seen in the town. The City Council voted on the issue and all Councilmen were in favor of the order. On 9 November 1968, the first man in the town to be drafted (since WW2), Jacobs Reily, was given an order to report for duty in the US Navy. Jacobs Reily brought the letter to the Mayor and asked him what to do. The Mayor told him to disregard the letter. Mayor Willcombs told Reily that the Greenville Police would arrest the draft officials if they came for him. Greenville War of Independence On Christmas day 1968, the US Navy drafting office sent Lt. George Papenari to the home of Mr. Reily to bring him in for duty. When Lt. Papenari arrived in Greenville, he went to the Police to ask why Reily had not been arrested. The Greenville Police placed Lt. Papenari under arrest and put him in a holding cell. When Lt. Papenari had not returned that evening, the Navy Draft office called the Police in Greenville, who explained that Lt. Papenari had violated the local law and was awaiting trail. The next day, the Navy sent a military lawyer, Lt. Micheal Miller to arrange Lt. Papenari's release, but the town would not release him. The Battle of the Greenville Jail On 3 January 1969, 2 MP's from the Montana Army National Guard arrived in Greenville and demmanded that Greenville Police release Lt. Papenari to them. The MP's promised that the Navy would prosectue Lt. Papenari under the UCMJ for disorderly conduct. Greenville Police told the MP's to leave the town because the matter was between Greenville and the US Navy. The MP's (SGT. Dave Soles and SFC. James Cooper) then pulled their sidearms and demanded the release of Lt. Papenari. Greenville Police officers opened fire on the MPs killing SFC Cooper and wounding SGT. Soles. SGT. Soles and Lt. Miller surrendered to Greenville Police and where treated as POWs. Word of the MP's unauthorized visit to Greenville didn't reach the Montana National Guard, until 4 Janurary 1969 when the US Navy phoned Greenville Police and learned of the situation. Greenville Police told them that 2 US Army MPs opened fire so they were forced to kill one of them. On the evening of 4 Janurary 1969, Mayor Willcombs called the town to a meeting. Mayor Willcombs proposed the town secede from the United States, and form their own military. Mayor Willcombs said by doing this, they could free themselfs from murder charges of SFC Cooper by claiming the US Army and US Navy invaded their soverign territory. Mayor Willcombs also pointed out that by doing this, their residents would become foreign citizens and not subject to the US draft, thus completing thier initial goal. The majority of Greenville residents initialy supported independence and together they drafted a declaration of independence. On 5 Janurary, Mayor Willcombs created the Greenville Army and Greenville Navy, he appointed Jonas Quake General of the Army and Henery Renker Admiral of the Navy. 1 hour later, newly apointed General Quake and Admiral Renker delivered the declaration of independece to the Governer in Helena, Montana. Quake and Renker proposed that the Montana National Guard be withheld from Greenville and in return they would release SGT. Soles and the body of SFC. Cooper. The Governer agreed and after Renker telephoned Mayor Willcombs, SGT Soles was released and so was the body of SFC Cooper. The US Navy was not as cooperative, but they did side with Montana, stating in a press release that 2 Navy Lieutenants were being held prisioner in the soverign city-state of Greenville. In the same press release, they stated that the Marine Corps would invade Greenville and return it to the US. The Battle of Minnow Creek In Preperation for the upcoming attack, Admiral Renker hired 50 sailors, 10 of whom were officers, and bought 10 small rowboats for the Navy. Renker assigned 5 sailors to each boat, with exception of 5 sailors whom he designated as dock crewman who stayed ashore. The remaining boat, the GGS Minnow (GGS- Greenville Government Ship) was to be the Admiral's "flagship". Renker outfit his sailors with .45 Caliber Pistols. General Quake prepared the Army by hiring 200 soldiers, 10 of whom were officers. Quake divided the Army into 2 divisions, 1st Division South and 2nd Division North. The 1st Division was responsible for Greenville south of the Police Station and north of the Police Station of was 2nd Division's responsibility. Quake outfit his men with 12 gauge shotguns that they siezed from the Smithson and Collins plant (S&C Company produced shotguns for the US Army until 1968). On the morning of 13 Janurary 1969, three platoons of Marines were spotted camping 5 miles north of the town, so Mayor Willcombs gave the order to deploy the military. General Quake positioned the 2nd Division, commanded by Colonel Williams, just south of Minnow Creek. The 2nd Regiment placed Alpha Company in the town Water Works building and Bravo Company deployed to the hospital. 4th Regiment established an ammo cache in the fire department. In the late afternoon of 13 Janurary 1969, the Marines luanched an attack on Greenville from the north. The Marines surronded the hospital and exchanged fire with the 2nd Regiment's Alpha Company for 45 minutes, at the end Alpha Company suffered heavy losses and surrendered to the Marines who had suffered only 6 causilties. The Marines then took up postions in the hosptial and marched Greenville POWs back to their base camp. When night fell, a platoon of Marines occupied the Greenville Hosptial and began sniping the 4th Regiment's Ammo Cache. In an effort to push the Marines out of the hospital, the commander of 2nd Regiment, Lt. Colonel Robert Thompson (appointed 1969), order 2nd Regiment Bravo Company to leave one platoon in the water works plant and send one platoon to attack the west flank of the hospital while the Navy sent 2 boats up Minnow Creek and Sailors could attack the east flank of the building. Lt. Colonel Thompson's counter attack, which became known as the Thompson Charge, confused the Marines into thinking Greenville had more than 300 men, while in actuallity they only attacked with a force of app. 40 men. When the Marines thought they were outnumbered, the platoon leader order them to retreat to base camp. Lt. Colonel Thompson waited on the Marines to retreat and then reoccupied the hospital. Jackson's Raid When the sun rose on 14 Janurary 1969, the Marine Corps realizied that Greenville was not going to surrender, so they planned to recover the two captured naval officers, Lt. Miller and Lt. Papenari, and then attempt to use their Greenville POWs to negotiate with Greenville and get them to lay down their arms. The Marine Corps knew that Greenville would not voluntarily give up the officers, but they had to be recovered for the Marine Corps strategy to work. To solve this problem, they planned a 5 man raid to recover the officers, The leader of the raid was Lance Corporal William Jackson. Jackson was given 4 men under his command and 5 days to bring the officers back alive. Jackson spent 2 days scouting Greenville from the north bank of Minnow Creek and determined that the men were being held at the Greenville Jail. On 17 Janurary 1969, Jackson placed his sniper acrossed the bank from the jail and told him to neutrilize the jail. The sniper shot 8 of the 10 Jailers, and the rest reatreated after firing back. The Police fired on the Marines but were unable to hit them. Jackson ordered his men to quicly cross the creek before the Greenville Military arrived. They forded Minnow Creek and used explosives to blow a hole in the wall of the jail. The Marines recovered the officers and crossed the creek again. A Greenville Navy boat came up Minnow Creek and fired on them, but the Marines threw gernades into the boat, sinking it and killing all 5 crew. Operation Mortar Offensive After Lance Corporal Jackson's sucessful raid and recovery of Lt. Miller and Lt. Papenari, the Marines told Mayor Willcombs that they would release all Greenville POWs if the town surrendered and agreed to become part of the United States again. To everyone's suprise, Mayor Willcombs told the Marines that he would not surrender, regardless of POWs or casualities. On 21 Janurary 1969, the Governor of Montana was starting to get frustarted with Greenville, he broke his previous agreement with Greenville and deployed over 500 National Guardsmen to assist the Marines. These Guardsmen set up mortars outside of town and began to heavily mortar the town each night. General Quake launched several attacks to try to disable the mortars but each attack was defeated by Marine patrols before they even got to the mortar base. This countined for several months, but besides the mortar attacks each side was at a standstill, whenever someone would try to advance past Minnow Creek or take control of the hosptial, they would always be beaten back by the other. By June 1969, the Greenville situation was begining to tip in favor of the US. Smithson and Collins sabatoged their own plant to elminate the supply of Greenville shotgun shells and the City Council realizied that they were running out of food. To combat the problems, General Quake ordered a massive attack consisting of the entire 1st Regiment aimed at the National Guard mortars. On the night of 23 June 1969, the 1st Regiment was able to slip past Marine patrols and reach the un-guarded mortar base. The Guardsmen working the mortars were unarmed and taken by suprise. They retreated quickly when the 1st Regiment opended fire, leaving behind thier mortars and rations. The 1st Regiment comendired the mortars, mortar ammo, and rations and discovered a cache of over fifty M16 rifles and ammo for them. The 1st Regiment brought all of this back to Greenville and deilvered the rations, rifles and ammo to the 3rd Regiment for distribution. General Quake established a mortar base north of Town Hall and staffed it with spare men from the 2nd Regiment. Final Days of the War Operation Mortar Offensive turned the tide of the war. On 2 July 1969, the Marines and National Guard were forced to retreat 10 miles from Greenville to avoid attacks from the captured mortars. At that distance, it became impossible to launch an attack because the Greenville Army would see US forces coming and lay mortar fire on the road, forcing them to stop and retreat. Independnce is Won On 6 July 1969, President Nixon ordered the US forces to stop attacking Greenville and demanded a meeting with Mayor Willcombs in Helena to end the conflict. President Nixon asked Mayor Willcombs what it would take to end the war. Mayor Willcombs said he would sign a peace treaty if the US allowed Greenville to become indepent of the US and if he released Greenville POWs back to their commanders. President Nixon agreed and according to the terms in the Greenville Peace Treaty, Greenville officialy became indepent of the United States on 2 Janurary 1970. Greenville POWs were released on 5 August 1969. Reconstruction After Greenville won it's independence, the country had a lot of rebuilding to do. The hospital was in ruins because it was a battlesite nearly daily and the government building had no roof due to nightly mortar attacks. Mayor Willcombs also noted that he needed to build addiontional structures now that they were independent, such as Army and Navy bases. To finance this major reconsurction, Mayor Willcombs and the City Council took a loan from a private bank in Canada in the amount of $100,000. On 24 Janurary 1970, the city began charging an income tax of 9 percent to pay government salaries and loan payments. By 18 Feburary 1970, the government had rebuilt the Capital building and hosptial, and they used the remaining loan funds to build several new buildings, as well as repair private property damaged in the war. By 13 March 1970 the government had completed all repairs and was nearly complete with all new construction projects when the City Council voted that the Mayor would be re-elected on 15 July 1970. The canidates for this election were Mayor Willcombs running for another term and his opponent, General Jonas Quake who lead the Greenville Army to victory in the war and was considered a hero in the town. Election of 1970 In the town of Greenville there were two major divisions in politics, those who supported Willcombs and those who thought Willcombs was insane. Once the war ended, many people questioned Willcombs's leadership because during the war General Quake had acted as defacto leader. General Quake had planned all of the military operations alongside Admiral Renker, and also used his own troops to provide civil support to Greenville residents. General Quake's troops had provided security and law enforcment for the town, as well as providing civillians with food when supplies began running low in Greeville. Orginally, Mayor Willcombs was supposed to use his Police Force to provide these civil services to areas not directly involved in combat, but he often negelected to do more than use them to augment military personnel. It was a common site for General Quake to take command of the police and order patrols, something he was not supposed to have to do. To compact problems for Willcombs, his opponent had the votes of all his men that served under him in the war. Not suprisingly, Mayor Willcombs was defeated in the election. General Quake, now Mayor Quake, was elected Mayor with 94% of the votes, a record that was never broken. Mayor Quake promoted one of his Colonels from the war to General to take his place. Mayor Quake was a firm believer that civillians should run the government, so he resigned his comand before taking office. This act of noblity showed the citizens of Greenville that Mayor Quake was there to keep democracy and restore Greenville's economy. The Jonas Q Plan Greenville had thier war of independce and was free to rule themselfs. Mayor Willcombs had saved the country from economic crisis when he took out a loan to rebuild the nation. Mayor Willcombs had planned for the short term and didn't consider the long term implications of a large national deficit. With government debt mounting and the economy stagnant, Quake knew he needed to act quickly to prevent an econmic crash. He devolped a plan called the Jonas Q Plan. Under the plan, the government would impose an income tax of a flat 10%, and create legislation that prevented the taxtion of bussiness in Greenville. His hope was to encourge industry to move into Greenville and hire thier citizens. This inturn would generate government revenue by taxing the income of employed citizens. The Jonas Q Plan would make Greenville attractive to industry and provide jobs for Greenvillians, thus stimulating the national economy and reducing the deficit. Oposesition to the Jonas Q Plan Councilman Huey Hinez was the strongest opponent to the plan. Councilman Hinez argued that the plan favored bussiness owners and harmed the citizens. He said that any revenue generated by the plan would not be enough to reduce the deficet and the government would fall powerless. Councilman Hinez sugessted a counter-proposal he called the Greenvillian Aid Act. The Greenvillian Aid Act would provide citizens with welfare funded by another loan, and was susposed to sustain Greenvillians until the economy picked back up. Councilman Hinez favored the act because it allowed the government to practice a lazie fare policy on economics, this is something than Councilman Hinez beilieved in strongly. To help fight the plan, Hinez founded the first poltical party in Greenville on 14 August 1970, the City Conservitive Party. Mayor Quake responded quickly by founding his own poltical party the next day, the Greenville Democratic Comission. The Jonas Q Era (1971-1976) Despite Councilman Hinez's desperate and persistant efforts to shutdown the Jonas Q Plan, when the city council voted on 24 Septimber 1970, 3 of the 5 councilmen voted for the Jonas Q Plan. Once the plan toke effect in 1971, Greenville was swamped with over 14 bussiness moving from the US to Greenville. These bussinesses boosted the economy and triggered an econmic boom that lasted until 1976. During this time, the unemployment rate went down to 1.23% and the national deficit became a surplus of $233,976. Of all the Jonas Q Era bussiness to move to Greenville during the boom, the most notable two were the North American Communications Corporation employing 47% of the workforce, followed by Colbolt Concrete employing 41% of the workforce. These companies moved to Greenville from various Montana cities, costing the state millions in tax revenue and getting the attention of the federal government. The US government wanted to impose a tariff on Greenville to keep bussiness from jumping the border, but the Canadians refused to sign trade deals with the US if the tariffs were placed, mainly because Canadian banks managed most Greenville accounts and would lose money if the Greenville economy failed. Mayor Quake managed to maintain the economic boom and pass many of his plans through the dominantly GDC city council. Most Greenville citizens were pleased with the way things were run, but Mayor Quake wanted to challenge the status quo and ensure his re-election in 1975. To do this, Mayor Quake pushed a 5% income tax hike through the city council to fund a pension program for veterans of the war of independence. Mayor Quake was sure that his pension plan, dubbed Veteran Welfare, would show his former soliders that he still had thier backs while increasing the government surplus. Veteran Welfare was passed easily through the city council on 6 April 1973, but many veterans didn't even like the plan. Many accused the GDC of having too much control in the city council and trying to turn Greenville into a "welfare state". To worsen matters for the GDC, the companies in Greenville refused to give thier employees raises to cover the new tax, resulting in strikes and an increased unemployment rate. When this downward sprial began, Mayor Quake acted quickly and the GDC repealed Veteran Welfare on 8 August 1973, restoring the economy to an upward trend, but the damage was already done. The economic growth slowed as companies lost confidence in Greenville and the GDC certainly lost any chance of staying in office. Over the next two years, the GDC tried to pass some economic reform laws to try and boost the economy, but they were never passed as two councilmen switched partes after the Veteran Welfare scare. Every GDC policy was shut down either because the CCP didn't support government intervention in bussiness affairs or they were worried about another econmic scare. Election of 1975 When the next election came around, both political parties in Greenville ran a candidate in the election. The incumbent candate for Mayor was Jonas Quake supported by the GDC, and the CCP ran Councilman Huey Hinez for Mayor. GDC Platform Mayor Quake argued that the GDC had gave Greenville it's current rich economy, and that they needed more time to smooth out the kinks, such as the Veteran Welfare Scare. He said that the GDC's econmic policy was a sound one that would work in the long haul. His perhaps worst mistake was to contradict himself by saying that he supported government ownership of the hospital in order to "lower health care costs for the citizenry". CCP Platform Councilman Hinez said that the CCP was the only party that could stablize the economy and stop government intervention. He argued that the Veteran Welfare Scare was proof that the GDC's intrustive economic poilcies could easily devistate the economy that didn't need any intervention. The CCP as a whole wanted to revoke the Jonas Q Plan and implement a traditional tax system. Many people doubted the intentions of the CCP because of the original Greeville Aid Act proposed by Hinez, they saw this as proof that the CCP supported a welfare state. The Election When it came time to vote on 15 July 1975, the public voted 53% in favor of Huey Hinez for mayor, but the City Council was elected with 4 GDC councilmen and 1 CCP councilman. It was appearent that now Mayor Hinez was going to have a difficult time passing any CCP legislation or repealing any GDC laws. What followed was period of 5 years full of political gridlock and slow a slow politcal process known as the Standstill Era. The Standstill Era Category:Greenville Army Category:Nations